godfather and godmother of a Cagot child
became Cagots themselves by the Breton
laws, unless, indeed, the poor little baby died
before attaining a certain number of days.
They had to eat the butchers' meat
condemned as unhealthy; but, for some unknown
reason, they were considered to have a right,
to every cut loaf turned upside down, with
its cut side towards the door, and might
enter any house in which they saw a loaf in
this position, and carry it away with them.
About thirty years ago, there was the skeleton
of a hand hanging up as an offering in a
Breton Church near Quimperle, and the
tradition was, that it was the hand of a rich
Cagot who had dared to take holy water out
of the usual bénitier, some time at the beginning
of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth,
which an old soldier witnessing, he laid in
wait, and the next time the offender
approached the bénitier, he cut off his hand,
and hung it up, dripping with blood, as an
offering to the patron saint of the church.
The poor Cagots in Brittany petitioned
against their opprobrious name, and begged
to be distinguished by the appellation of
Malandrins.  To English ears one name is
much the same as the other, as neither
conveys any meaning; but, to this day, the
descendants of the Cagots do not like to have
this word applied to them, preferring the
term Malandrin.

The French Cagots tried to destroy all the
records of their pariah descent, in the commotions
of seventeen hundred and eighty-nine;
but if writings have disappeared, the tradition
yet remains, and points out such and
such a family as Cagot, or Malandrin, or
Oiselier, according to the old terms of
abhorence.

There are various ways in which learned
men have attempted to account for the
universal repugnance in which this well-made,
powerful race are held.  Some say that the
antipathy to them took its rise in the days
when leprosy was a dreadfully prevalent
disease; and that the Cagots are more liable
than other men to a kind of skin disease,
not precisely leprosy, but resembling it in
some of its symptoms; such as dead whiteness
of complexion, and swellings of the face
and extremities.  There was also some
resemblance to the ancient Jewish custom in
respect to lepers, in the habit of the people;
who, on meeting a Cagot, called out, "Cagote?
Cagote?" to which they were bound to reply,
"Perlute! perlute!" Leprosy is not properly
an infectious complaint, in spite of the horror
in which the Cagot furniture, and the cloth
woven by them, is held in some places; the
disorder is hereditary, and hence (say this
body of wise men, who have troubled
themselves to account for the origin of Cagoterie)
the reasonableness and the justice of
preventing any mixed marriages, by which this
terrible tendency to leprous complaints might
be spread far and wide. Another authority
says, that, though the Cagots are fine-looking
men, hard-working, and good mechanics, yet
that they bear in their faces, and show in
their actions reasons for the detestation in
which they are held; their glance, if you
meet it, is the jettatura, or evil eye, and they
are spiteful, and cruel, and deceitful above all
other men. All these qualities they derive
from their ancestor Gehazi, the servant
of Elisha, together with their tendency to
leprosy.

Again, it is said that they are descended
from the Arian Goths, who were permitted
to live in certain places in Guienne and
Languedoc, after their defeat by King Clovis, on
condition that they abjured their heresy, and
kept themselves separate from all other men
for ever. The principal reason alleged in
support of this supposition of their Gothic
descent, is the specious one of derivation,
Chiens Gots, Cans Gots, Cagots, equivalent
to Dogs of Goths.

Again, they were thought to be Saracens,
coming from Syria. In confirmation of this
idea, was the belief that all Cagots were
possessed by a horrible smell.  The
Lombards, also, were an unfragrant race, or so
reputed among the Italians: witness Pope
Stephen's letter to Charlemagne, dissuading
him from marrying Bertha, daughter of
Didier, King of Lombardy. The Lombards
boasted of Eastern descent, and were noisome.
The Cagots were noisome, and therefore
must be of Eastern descent. What could
be clearer?  In addition, there was the proof
to be derived from the name Cagot, which
those holding the opinion of their Saracen
descent held to be Chiens, or Chasseurs des
Gots, because the Saracens chased the Goths
out of Spain. Moreover, the Saracens were
originally Mahometans, and as such obliged
to bathe seven times a-day: whence the
badge of the duck's foot. A duck was a
water bird: Mahometans bathed in the
water. Proof upon proof!

In Brittany the common idea was, they
were of Jewish descent. Their unpleasant
smell was again pressed into the service.
The Jews it was well known had this
physical infirmity, which might be cured either
by bathing in a certain fountain in Egypt—
which was a long way from Brittany—or by
anointing themselves with the blood of a
Christian child.  Blood gushed out of the
body of every Cagot on Good Friday.  No
wonder, if they were of Jewish descent. It
was the only way of accounting for so
portentous a fact.  Again; the Cagots
were capital carpenters, which gave the
Bretons every reason to believe that their
ancestors were the very Jews who made the
cross. When first the tide of emigration set
from Brittany to America, the oppressed
Cagots crowded to the ports, seeking to go to
some new country, where their race might be
unknown. Here was another proof of their
descent from Abraham and his nomadic